This is the truth. If you want the industry to change, don’t go to restaurants who do the tipping model. If you go to these places and don’t tip in some misguided attempt to change things, guess what. The owner just felt zero difference. They got paid 100% what they were expecting. It’s the waitstaff who just felt it. So why would the restaurant owner, the guy with the power to change things and not notable for giving a shit about their staff, care about your protest at all? Assuming they notice which they aren’t going to.

The only way to actually mount financial pressure on these places is to not go to them.

Of course, I assume most people who claim to be not tipping as some form of protest against the system just want to take advantage of the lower prices allowable by the lowered wage that waitstaff receive while claiming to be doing it for some higher goal.